Yes, already. I have slept much too little in the last couple of nights, but these books are so worth it! I hope that I can sink my teeth in the next book tonight. And I just ordered the whole series because I don’t have them all digitally. And ME NEEEEEDS.

Okay. Back to normal.

Visions of Heat is the second novel in the Psy-Changeling Series by Nalini Singh. It focuses on two differenct characters than Slave to Sensation – Vaughn and Faith. Vaughn we already know from Slave to Sensation, Faith is new. In every book, a different couple is the heart of the story, but the other characters are still there and play a part. That’s pretty cool.

[You might find this post a bit spoilerish for Slave to Sensation, but only if you don’t know how romance novels work… If you do, you will know how it ends.]

Vaughn is part of the Leopard pack, although he’s a jaguar. (He’s been adopted, so to say.) One day, he stumbles upon a guarded house at the edge of the forest, where a Psy lives. Intrigued, because the Psy usually stay in the cities, he stays close, keeping an eye on the house. And it pays off, because not much later, a young psy, Faith, walks away from the house, into the forest and into his arms.
Faith is an F-Psy – she can see into the future. But lately, dark visions have been plaguing her. Visions of murder and death and blood. Visions that scare her, although as a Psy she shouldn’t feel scared. Or anything at all. When her father calls her to tell her that her sister has been murdered, she decides that she has to get some answers. And the only person who can give her these answers is Sascha.

I was a bit afraid that the story wouldn’t work because we have rather similar characters as in StS – the intelligent, headstrong, inexperienced girl who slowly discovers her feelings and body with the help of a pushing, angry alpha male with a tragic backstory, all while they’re hunting a killer. But Singh manages to give the characters a fresh feel and they are not so much like Lucas and Sascha as you might think.

The actual plot for the book – the murderer hunting – takes place in the background. Instead, the small hints and possible connections from StS are picked up to slowly build a bigger backstory, which will run through the next books (I hope). And it’s very interesting. I especially loved the whole thing with the NetMind. I really hope she explores that further.

I didn’t like Vaughn and Faith as much as a couple as I liked Sascha and Lucas. [But we still get a lot of Sascha and Lucas and especially of how Sascha developed in the year or so since she joined the pack.] Vaughn has serious anger issues and is a bit too scary for my taste. But even here, the characters are well developed, 3D and accessible. They have their depths and they have their edges. 

Oh, and I loved the whole thing with Anthony. Good stuff.

So, though Slave to Sensation is a little better than Visions of Heat, VoH builds a foundation for a bigger story ark that will quite possibly kick ass.